Author name in cfgpatches change, why?

[taro8 806]

:banghead:

 

Who came up with the bright idea of changing the format of the author? This forces us to change every addon created until now. Note that not every creator is still around, or has time to update his scripts/addons in order to abide this change.

 

Honestly, this is just stupid, even if you roll back the changes, some actually changed the format to new and then they would need to change it back to old format.

 

I can't even really roll back and use the 1.58 legacy as some addons got updated, am I supposed to hunt for the old versions in order to get everything running properly again?

 

What was the reason for this? Why was it so important to do something like this? Did the old format cause so much problems it had to be changed?

 

Could some legacy compatiblity tweak that would accept the old format as well?

 

Does leaving the author in old format will cause script errors and such? Aside from "author/' is not a value".

 

My only wish is that I would want a small program that would go through every damn addon in order to change the author without the need of me manually unpboing every single pbo file.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

author[] wasn't an official parameter in the first place.

 

It was something that CBA added as a feature in Arma 2 (IIRC) to display such information during loading screens etc. And even if they didn't utilise CBA, people added it to their configs by convention (probably from copying cfgPatches structure they found in other mods, ignorant of what it was).

 

https://dev.withsix.com/projects/cca/wiki/Author_and_Credits_system

 

Admittedly it was a bit dull of BIS not to be aware that a lot of community addons used this feature, but it's not like they changed their own parameter like when they change classnames or texture paths or something.

 

Kind of shows the importance of using TAGS_ when implementing custom parameter and variable names in to code, so that everybody knows who adds what, and you avoid conflicting names.

[road runner 4344]

Herein lies the problem when "authors" don't update their addons, or that people are using old addons, that have been using the same configs from the alpha days.

I'm not 100% sure, but the string EG 

 

author = "Road Runner";

 

Has actually been part of BIS configs since perhaps 1.48 it's on their configs wiki, I've not changed the paramaters on any of my addon's for at least 8-10 months, but I do get errors with other older addons.

 

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I'm not 100% sure, but the string EG 

 

author = "Road Runner";

 

Has actually been part of BIS configs since perhaps 1.48 it's on their configs wiki, I've not changed the paramaters on any of my addon's for at least 8-10 months, but I do get errors with other older addons.

 

There has been an author= parameter in cfgVehicles, cfgWeapons etc. classes for a while, but it's a new addition to cfgPatches

 

The author[]= array in cfgPatches (which is causing trouble now there is and official author= string in cfgPatches) is as I said; an unofficial parameter that was established by CBA.

 

As to why BIS haven't used author[]= array instead of the author= string for the new official cfgPatches parameter: They're obviously keeping cfgPatches consistent with the name of the other official parameter they were already using in cfgVehicles/cfgWeapons etc. Which makes sense when you think about it.

[taro8 806]

How many FPS we gained from this change? Has the scripting engine been massively improved by this author format change?

 

If it was just a cosmetic internal code change it wasnt worth it at all. At least give us a legacy setting wih will accept old format.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

How many FPS we gained from this change? Has the scripting engine been massively improved by this author format change?

If it was just a cosmetic internal code change it wasnt worth it at all. At least give us a legacy setting wih will accept old format.

Yes exactly.

This error is not harmless and some mods and maps will never get updated again and will always have this error unless BIS allows the old way to be a legacy code.

I know a lot of people on this site have suddenly turned against unsupported Addons. But maps such as FATA which worked perfectly fine don't deserve to get killed over a change like this. A larger change I get but something like this is really unfortunate.

[Jackal326 1158]

But maps such as FATA which worked perfectly fine don't deserve to get killed over a change like this. A larger change I get but something like this is really unfortunate.

Instead they killed by the broken skybox, which in my opinion [the visual overhaul] was a necessary change.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

Instead they killed by the broken skybox, which in my opinion [the visual overhaul] was a necessary change.

The skyboxes aren't broken using CUP Terrains. Not on the custom made A2 maps I've used, at least.

[Jackal326 1158]

The skyboxes aren't broken using CUP Terrains.

I wasn't aware FAT was directly supported by CUP. I'll put on my orthopaedic prescribed shoes and stand corrected then.

 

Either way, da12thmonkey pretty much summed it up:

 

The author[]= array in cfgPatches (which is causing trouble now there is and official author= string in cfgPatches) is as I said; an unofficial parameter that was established by CBA.

 

As to why BIS haven't used author[]= array instead of the author= string for the new official cfgPatches parameter: They're obviously keeping cfgPatches consistent with the name of the other official parameter they were already using in cfgVehicles/cfgWeapons etc. Which makes sense when you think about it.

So, in summary: Its CBA's fault :D

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I wasn't aware FAT was directly supported by CUP. I'll put on my orthopaedic prescribed shoes and stand corrected then.

It's not. The most they are doing to support it is re-adding the sound via a new ASCZ map fixes and they're also working on a custom config for the lighting (though they must have included something for this map in their most recently release because the skybox is fine). The author is not a value error though I'm assuming they can't do anything about. Which sucks.

The last I heard the map author was MIA.

Anyway, FATA is just one example of I'd assume plenty that this error affects (and could always affect) which is pretty discouraging when you grow to love certain content so much.

[commy2 188]

While Author[] is indeed not supposed to be used in CfgPatches, this whole debacle could've been avoided if the 3DEN script used "isText" before reading the value with "getText". This whole thing would be fixed in two minutes.

Ironically CBA does check with "isArray" before attempting to read the "author[]" entry, so at least the vanilla CfgPatches don't have the same error in reverse.